Earlier today Microsoft announced its 3rd generation Surface Pro device, aptly named the Surface Pro 3. This is the first Surface model to deviate from the 10.6" 16:9 form factor of all four previous devices (Surface Pro, Surface RT, Surface Pro 2, Surface 2) and instead standardizes on a 12" 3:2 form factor. The resulting device is also substantially thinner, now at 9.1mm (0.36"). Surface Pro 3 is now somewhere between the thickness of Surface 2 and Surface RT.

The original Surface Pro featured a kickstand that could stay open at a fixed 22-degree angle. Surface Pro 2 added another stop (40 degrees) to the kickstand to allow for more flexible, laptop-like operation. Surface Pro 3 features the same initial 22-degree stop, however it can be opened to any angle beyond that (up to 150-degrees) using a new high friction hinge. The hinge opens with little effort to its first stop, anything beyond that requires additional force. It's enough to feel secure, but not too little that the hinge loses its position. It's unclear how this new hinge will hold up over time but I suspect Microsoft put a good amount of testing into it.

With the device width comes a new type cover with a larger trackpad and secondary magnetic strip. The second magnetic strip can provide a second attach point to the Surface Pro 3, allowing the cover to be a more stable base when used in laptop mode. In practice the new hinge with more stable type cover creates a much more laptop-like base, which definitely comes in handy when typing on your lap. In my brief time with the review unit I still found it to be less stable than a laptop, but it's a far closer approximation to the laptop experience than it ever has been before.

The new trackpad is substantially larger horizontally and features a new lower friction surface. The trackpad is actually a clickpad with left/right buttons activated by pushing down on the lower left/right corners of the clickpad itself. Using the integrated trackpad on previous Surface covers was an exercise in madness that got mildly better last generation.

Right off the bat the new clickpad on the 3rd generation type cover is a lot better, but it's still not in laptop-territory as far as experience goes. I'll need to spend more time with it to see if it's truly past the point of being frustrating to use.

There's a new battery powered pen for Surface Pro 3. You lose some pressure sensitivity (256 levels vs 1024), but there are new features that Microsoft hopes will make up for it. I haven't spent much time with the new pen at all so I'll save commentary on it for the full review.

The new design features the same sized battery as previous Surface models. I'm guessing we'll see a reduction in battery life given the new, presumably higher power display, but I'll find out for sure over the coming days.

Microsoft also added 802.11ac support to the new Surface Pro courtesy of Marvell's Avastar-AC solution (88W8897 perhaps?).

And yes, connected standby is supported.

Microsoft Surface Pro Comparison

Surface Pro 3

Surface Pro 2

Surface Pro

Dimensions

11.5 x 7.93 x 0.36"

10.81 x 6.81 x 0.53"

10.81 x 6.81 x 0.53"

Display

12-inch 2160 x 1440

10.6-inch 1920 x 1080 w/ Improved Color Accuracy

10.6-inch 1920 x 1080 PLS

Weight

1.76 lbs

2.0 lbs

2.0 lbs

Processor

Core i5-4300U with HD4400 Graphics (15W Haswell ULT)

Core i5-4200U with HD4400 Graphics (15W Haswell ULT)

Core i5-3317U with HD4000 Graphics (17W Ivy Bridge)

Cameras

5MP/5MP (front/rear)

1.2MP/1.2MP (front/rear)

1.2MP/1.2MP (front/rear)

Connectivity

802.11ac WiFi

WiFi

WiFi

Memory

4GB or 8GB LPDDR3

4GB or 8GB LPDDR3

4GB

Storage

64, 128, 256 or 512GB

64 or 128GB (4GB RAM)
256GB or 512GB (8GB RAM)

64GB or 128GB

Battery

42.0 Wh

42.0 Wh

42.0 Wh

Starting Price

$799

$899

$799

Display

With Surface Pro 3, Microsoft finally accepts that while 16:9 may be a great aspect ratio for watching movies but it's not optimal for a multi-purpose tablet. The tablet features a 12" 2160 x 1440 display (RGB stripe, not RGBW/PenTile), which ends up being a 3:2 aspect ratio. The difference is immediately noticeable in notebook-style use. While the Surface Pro 2 was never quite all that comfortable to use as a laptop, Surface Pro 3's display makes it substantially more laptop-like. There doesn't appear to be a substantial impact to tablet use either with the larger display. Particularly with Windows 8.1's split screen mode, the larger display ends up working extremely well. I'll talk about the new hinge a bit more in the usability section but the aspect ratio alone is a huge step forward.

Default Scaling on Surface Pro 3

Color accuracy is improved out of the box as well. The original Surface Pro had a display capable of being quite accurate, if calibrated, but out of the box it was a bit of a mess. Microsoft slowly improved out of box calibration over the years, eventually culminating in what we have today with Surface Pro 3.

Unfortunately Surface Pro 3 doesn't do so well on our GMB color checker test. Part of the problem is its performance in the grayscale swatches included in this test:

Overall the display is a big improvement over the previous Surface Pro generations, but it's still behind iPad Air territory in terms of color reproduction which is disappointing. Given Microsoft's focus on Surface Pro 3 as an image editing tool, I would've hoped for class leading performance across the board.

Performance

Surface Pro 3 still uses a 15W Haswell ULT SoC. My review sample uses a Core i5-4300U (a speed bump of SP2's original 4200U), although there are also Core i3 and i7 options as well. In the case of the i5-4300U we're talking about a dual-core/4 thread Haswell part with a 3MB L3 cache. The CPU cores run at up to a 1.9GHz base frequency and 2.9GHz max turbo. The latter is quite impressive given the incredibly thin (9.1mm) Surface Pro 3 chassis. My guess is that Intel is giving Microsoft the best binned Haswell ULT parts to ensure good performance at low thermals. There are still 4GB or 8GB memory options, although my sample came with 8GB of LPDDR3.

The system's internal fan was definitely audible during the Cinebench run.

On the storage front Microsoft is still using a SATA based drive. It's unfortunate that more PC makers haven't shifted to PCIe, although I suspect that'll come next year with NVMe based solutions (I hope). My review sample featured a 256GB Samsung PM851 drive, this is an OEM version of the TLC based Samsung SSD 840 EVO.

Despite featuring a thinner chassis, I measured performance improvements over both previous Surface Pros. I'll have more data in the final review but here I'm seeing a 3 - 20% increase in performance over the Surface Pro 2.

Final Words

There's a lot more work to do on Surface Pro 3, including substantial battery life testing and continued usage. If there's anything in particular you guys want to see us touch on, leave it in the comments below.

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295 Comments

This is a great looking... um... tabtop? Laplet? I'm not sure. But at 12", it's not hand-holdable, espeically with that keyboard flapping about, so I guess I'll settle on tabtop. In any case, the functionality of this little gem is amazing! It's great something so usable is finally in the same league as the MacBook Air!Reply

I'm getting an SP3 and trying it decide between the i5 and i7 256GB models. I've read mixed reports, and I would love your take on the battery life penalty (if any) imposed by the i7/Intel 5000 graphics combo as compared to the i5/Intel 4400, vs the increment in performance. What is the real life significance for each of these? This will be a do everything machine for me: web browse; email; work including small spreadsheets/PowerChart; movies (watching) and possibly some photo/video editing if practical (not extensive- family stuff). Planning to use high speed micro SDXC to augment storage if necessary (seems less expensive at this point than the 512GB top-end SP3. Thanks for comments/opinions.Reply

Hi. I love your review and will certainly be coming back here for information in the future. Since you asked, I have a few suggestions for your next round of testing.There is a lot of talk about use with the keyboard but what I'd really like to know how is stacks up as a scribbler and note taker. Could you please look at using it on portrait mode, with the stylus - isn't this is one of the main advantages of the Surface? Please look into the onscreen keyboard as part of this as well.And although this is meant to be a working machine, how about playing games like Civ5 and Elder scrolls online? Is the i5 up to the task of modern recreation or the i7? Or really are they not going to make the grade?Finally if you can get a trial of the next Photoshop that is for designed for the surface I'd love some information on how good or bad that combination is in practice.Reply